Jamaican Jerk Chicken!

I have had the recipe for Jamaican Jerk Chicken in my "recipe box" on AllRecipes for over two years now and just haven't gotten around to making it! However, I decided a few weeks ago that I really wanted to make it since we were at the Brewers game instead of going to Rhythm & Brews when they had their "Jerk" night a few weeks ago.

So, without further ado, Jamaican Jerk Chicken!

The recipe calls for 4 limes (juiced) and a cup of water to put the chicken in. We used 5 limes since a- we have a lot of limes leftover from our Memorial Day BBQ where the featured drink was gin & tonic, and b- we don't have juicer and I don't think squeezing the limes by hand maximizes the amount of lime juice...

The rest of the marinade was made up of allspice, nutmeg, salt, brown sugar, thyme, ground pepper, and ginger. It also called for vegetable oil, but I substituted Natural Grapeseed Oil instead since I have almost a whole bottle of it that I've only used twice. The recipe called for ground allspice, but I only have the whole allspice, but since it gets put in the blender I hardly think it really matters. Blended all that together and then added the chopped onion, chopped green onion, 6 cloves of garlic, and the peppers. The recipe called for habanero peppers but we used jalapeno and serrano peppers instead since habaneros are hella hot! After all that was blended together, it was added to the chicken/lime juice/water and marinaded in the fridge for two hours.

This chicken went on the grill after it was marinaded and only took about 15-20 minutes to grill thoroughly. There was a little marinade leftover so that it could be used to baste the chicken on the grill.

Finally, we served it with a side of basmati rice, since that's what we had in the house, when we make it again I'll probably use a more authentic side such as red beans and rice or anything from Zatarain's. :)

Overall, a great dish. Easy to prepare and easy to cook. Prep time was pretty accurate on the recipe, it took about 20 minutes to prep everything before going into the fridge. 221 calories per serving (about 5 WW points) not including the rice. Even without the habanero peppers, there was a bit of spice in the dish, but nothing outrageous (I can't imagine how hot it would have been with the habaneros, though!). Fun to make, and perfect for a summer day!

Even in the year 3000, the question will be "what's for dinner?"

If anyone else happens to remember that commercial from the 1980s promoting canned food, then mad props to you. There is nothing more weird than a space housewife promoting canned vegetables, and if that doesn't promote canned food, then I just don't know what does!

Anyway. My friend Erin periodically runs a post on her food blog called "what's for dinner" and I decided to steal her idea sincerely imitate her and do a post like that of my own. :)

On Friday we made hamburgers with sauteed mushrooms and onions (sauteed in Hickory Smoke Grapeseed Oil), on Thursday we cheated and went to The Chancery for 1/2 price pasta night.

On Wednesday night, however, I made Spaghetti Pie. When I was a kid, my mom made spaghetti pie a lot and it has become one of those nostalgic favorites. I had never attempted to make one myself, though I have tried to make lasagna and have deemed it to be a lot of work and I don't like making it that much. Spaghetti pie, however, is another story.

I don't really have any recollection of what recipe my mom used, so I poked around online and found one that sounded good at AllRecipes.com. There were a number of spaghetti pie recipes there, but I settled on Spaghetti Pie II because it sounded the easiest and most basic.

Since I had never made this recipe before, nor had I ever made a spaghetti pie before, I decided to just follow the recipe more or less as is, except that after I had made the "crust" (spaghetti, 2 eggs, and 2tblsp of butter in a pie pan), I realized I had bought tomato paste, but no diced tomatoes. Oops. Luckily, one of the reviewers of the recipe noted that instead of tomatoes/tomato paste, they used spaghetti sauce. So I used a plain spaghetti sauce instead, and it turned out fine- you're just mixing the tomatoes/paste with ground beef, onions and green peppers anyway.

Aside from that minor substitute, I followed the rest of the recipe as is. It turned out really good and was not that hard. Now that I have a basic recipe down, it will be easy to substitute and do my own variations of it. I am also going to ask my mom for her spaghetti pie recipe to see how it differs- I don't remember having that much ground beef in the pie as a kid.

I recommend this recipe- easy, tasty and for me, nostalgia. But unlike some nostalgia (like Sunny Delight - ew), this one is still good. :)